School Project

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Little Jennifer hovered over her toy construction set. It was a birthday present she'd gotten a couple weeks back and she was still learning about what it could do. One thing was for sure; the set empowered her to push her imagination to the limits and beyond. It was totally cutting edge. She laughed at her friends who still thought their Lego toy blocks were cool. This was way better than that. This was "Automego", the construction set with real working cranes powered by motors that automatically assembled a design uploaded from the companion software package.

Jen had done a number of very simple designs to get a feel for her shiny-new Automego construction set, and now she felt like she was ready for a more complicated design. Also, her teacher had just given the whole class an assignment to build a structure made of pasta. The entire grade would compete based on how much weight their structure could support. She knew that Automego would be her winning ticket for sure.

She entered the project criteria into the software and input her design. Using the simulation package she calculated that her design should hold 85 lbs, and there didn't seem to be anything she could change to improve that. "Excellent," she said. "The other kids probably won't get more than seventy."

She pressed "Upload & Build" and put a box of pasta and a cup of glue next to the Automego. Almost immediately it kicked into action, taking a piece of pasta from the pile and aligning it based on the guidelines from her specification. A small robotic arm took a bit of glue while a second crane aligned a second piece of pasta to form a joint. An LED screen showed "Remaining: 8 Minutes 27 Seconds" before the next step would be ready to begin. Jen thought, No need to watch this, I'll just come back tomorrow morning when it's done. Instead, she went off to rehearse a little bit for their upcoming school play.

Two weeks later she was in the auditorium of Highland School competing against all the other kids who had made pasta structures that could hold at least 60 lbs. One by one their teachers were loading weight on top of the row of two dozen pasta towers on display for the entire grade to see. They began with 60 lbs, matching what everybody had achieved in the qualification round. Four structures buckled under this pressure. They moved up to 65 lbs. and another 7 stuctures cracked and then flattened under the weight.

After 75 lbs, only three competitors remained, including Jen, another girl, and a boy. The teachers began piling on weight at 2.5 lbs increments. The boy's structure topped off at 80 lbs. When they added the next weight Jen was ready to punch her fist into the air and claim victory, but mysteriously her opponent's structure had no problem with 82.5 lbs.

"This is exciting," Jen said to the other girl, attempting to hide the little bit of anxiety that had crept into her stomach when they got this close to her expected goal. "It won't be long now." Their teachers put another weight on top of the two remaining pasta structures. Audible cracks were heard from both of them, but both held the weight.

"Okay, next is 87.5 lbs," announced a teacher. Another weight was added to both structures and Jen's was crushed.

Jen called out, "The other one needs to hold for a minute to be declared the winner!" She channeled mental images of her opponent's pasta cracking and crushing under the heavy weight, but as the seconds ticked down to zero she resigned to her second place finish. I can't believe Automego did this to me, she thought. "Good competition," she said as she shook hands with the winner.

Later, she was talking with her mom about what happened. "How could I have lost?" she asked. "The simulation said it was impossible to do any better than me!"

"The software that your Automego used isn't perfect. If it was, professional architects would be doing the same thing with real buildings. Thankfully they don't do that because the knowledge acquired during a lifetime of designing buildings is always going to be better than the output of some automated program. Ya know? Your classmate probably got help from one of her parents."

"You think she cheated?" asked Jen.

"Taking advantages of resources that are available isn't cheating. Otherwise you'd be just as guilty because you used the Automego. Think of what the kid who came in third place would think if he knew you did what you did to beat him?"

Jen touched the second place ribbon that was pinned to her shirt. She said, "He probably deserves this more than me."

"I'm not saying to give up your ribbon. You still beat him and as far as I can tell you did it according to the rules. You deserve that prize."

She smiled, "Thanks, mom. I love you."

Original photograph was taken by Ryan Owens (RKOwens4) from the roof of World Trade Center 7. Joe Woolhead was kind enough to provide access to the roof on the evening of September 10, 2008 to photograph the Tribute in Lights. The photograph was snapped earlier in the afternoon and depicts the construction site for the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

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